Ashley Judd should decide soon whether to run for Senate

View full sizeactress Ashley Judd, a Kentucky native who lives in Tennessee, is considering a run for the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky. But to challenge the Senate Minority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, Judd would have to first re-establish a residence in Kentucky. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. —
As Democrats encourage actress Ashley Judd to jump into Kentucky's U.S.
Senate race and Republicans take every opportunity to call her a
Hollywood liberal, a University of Kentucky political scientist says
Judd is nearing a deadline to make a decision.

"If she doesn't
declare herself in the next 10 days, I think she will have already made a
very serious mistake," political scientist Ernie Yanarella said
Tuesday. "She has to define herself, before she gets defined by those
who are her opponents."

Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear said Tuesday
he talked a second time with Judd last week and is convinced she would
be "an effective and formidable" challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell.

State
GOP Chairman Steve Robertson, meanwhile, sent a letter to all of the
state's Democratic lawmakers raising concerns about Judd's positions on a
wide range of issues that he insists are out of step with average
Kentuckians. Among them were statements opposing coal, the mining of
which employs some 15,000 people in the state.

Judd, a former
Kentucky resident now living in Tennessee, has been talking to
Democratic leaders about challenging McConnell in next year's election,
but hasn't said whether she will get into the race.

Yanarella said
Democrats clearly see Judd as their best chance of defeating McConnell,
though he said she would need to get the focus off of her
well-documented political views and onto McConnell's record.

To
win the Senate seat, Yanarella said Judd would have to show that
McConnell "has been so deeply absorbed in Republican Party national
concerns that he has woefully neglected the pressing needs of
Kentuckians."

Defeating McConnell would be the Democrats' biggest
prize of the 2014 election. His seat is one of 14 that Republicans are
defending while Democrats try to hold onto 21, hoping to retain or add
to their 55-45 edge.

McConnell already has a hefty campaign bank account, with $7.4 million remaining of the $10 million he has already raised.

McConnell
has been taunting potential Democratic challengers in a comical online
video intended to make them think twice about entering the race. The
video shows Judd, who has a home in the Nashville suburbs, saying
"Tennessee is home" and that San Francisco is "my American city home."
It also shows some of Kentucky's leading Democrats, including Lt. Gov.
Jerry Abramson, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, Attorney General Jack Conway and
Auditor Adam Edelen, saying they won't run against McConnell.

The
Republican-leaning group American Crossroads is assailing Judd in its
own online video that also plays up the fact that she lives in
Tennessee, and that she campaigned for President Barack Obama, who is
unpopular in Kentucky.

Kentucky House Republican Leader Jeff
Hoover said getting Judd into the race would be a boon for the state GOP
because of her liberal views.

"I hope she does enter the race,"
Hoover said. "I think if she becomes a candidate for U.S. Senate, it
will almost guarantee that we will become the majority party in the
Kentucky House. Her statements on coal, her statements on traditional
values are way outside what every day, hardworking Kentuckians think."

Hoover said Judd has proven a distraction for the Legislature.

"We
can't seem to get pension reform done or any of the other things we
need to get done because House Democratic leadership is too concerned
about who has talked to Ashley, who didn't talk to her, and who she
called or didn't call," Hoover said. "I just think we need to get past
someone who lives in Tennessee and focus on Kentucky problems."

Beshear said his last conversation with Judd was via telephone.

"I
would say without getting into the specifics of the conversation that
I'm convinced she is seriously considering a race for the U.S. Senate,"
he said. "And we'll see where it goes."

Conway said he believes
any well-known Democrat who can raise money and can articulate a
positive vision for Kentucky can beat McConnell.

"He's vulnerable because he's become the poster boy for the gridlock in Washington," Conway said.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo said the outcry from Republicans about Judd entering the race is telling.